New music
Lisa-Marie Ferla
This year, says Gary Barlow, marks 30 years since five boys walked into a room in Manchester and auditioned for what would turn out to be the UK’s most successful pop act. It is fitting, then, that what they are billing as the Odyssey tour features 25 hits from across three decades - and more than a few callbacks.The trio - Barlow, Howard Donald and an increasingly hirsute Mark Owen - may keep promising to take us “back to the 90s”, but there’s a decidedly futuristic look to the stage with a giant, glowing orb proving the pre-show focal point. As their band take their places in the shadows, Read more ...
Guy Oddy
Get The Blessing are a band whose music never fails to conjure up images of someone like Steve McQueen driving along a coastal Californian road, looking cool as you like in very dark shades, sat in an open-top sports car from a seriously stylish cops and robbers film from the mid-Sixties. This is despite the fact that their first album was only released in 2008 and they hail from Bristol.Born from the rhythm section of Portishead’s touring band, Get The Blessing play cool jazz that has hints of Hard Bop, lush cinematic soundtracks and even post-rock textures. While it’s a sound that is Read more ...
Guy Oddy
There aren’t many musicians to catch the ear of a substantial community of music lovers that includes both metalheads and world music fans, as well as having been invited to play the White House – especially when playing only instrumental tunes on acoustic guitars. Given that Rodrigo Sanchez and Gabriela Quintero hail from Mexico, however, it’s no surprise that their appearance in Washington DC was at the invitation of Barack Obama and not President Tiny Hands.Mettavolution is be Rodrigo y Gabriela’s sixth studio album and their first since 2014’s 9 Dead Alive, but it certainly doesn’t betray Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Bananarama are one of the most successful girl groups of all time. Consisting of Sara Dallin and Keren Woodward, the band’s third original member Siobhan Fahey left in 1988 to form Shakespears Sister. The trio reunited in 2017 for a tour but new album, In Stereo, sees them back as the long-standing duo. The pair have been friends since their school days.Bananarama formed in London in the milieu of post-punk clubland, their opening shot “Aie a Mwana” leading to a major label record deal and backing vocals for Fun Boy Three who were, at the time, one of Britain’s most eagerly anticipated new Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
How to put a full-stop on an over 50 year recording career? For multiple Music Hall of Fame-rs The O’Jays, the answer includes a party track penned by Bruno Mars, a reworked 60s single and a final chance to ruminate on the state of the world. The appropriately-named The Last Word packs a lot into a mere nine songs, and while the result is a bit of a mixed bag, it’s great to see one of the leading lights of the Philadelphia sound call time on a storied career on their own terms.The Last Word finds the trio - founding members Walter Williams and Eddie Levert plus Eric Grant, who joined in 1995 Read more ...
Sebastian Scotney
John Mayall keeps up one hell of a touring schedule for an 85-year-old. Last night's early set at Ronnie Scott's was the first of a three-night, two-houses-per-night stint at the club. And these performances come on the tail-end of around 35 previous engagements: Mayall's quartet has been criss-crossing Europe and gigging on most days since starting off in Tampere, Finland and darkness in late February. And his diary of North American dates scheduled for June and July looks pretty full too. Mayall, of course, is a figure of unique historical significance in shaping the course of rock Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
When poetic London MC Loyle Carner first appeared a couple years ago he was hailed for his fresh take on UK hip hop. Compared to the street-centric machismo of much grime music, he offered a welcome insight into a more sensitive 21st century masculinity that was a hit with both arts media sorts and the public. His second album, named for a Stevie Smith poem, contains two songs titled after virtuoso chefs (“Ottolenghi” and “Carluccio”), and one dedicated to his mother. It will do nothing to dent this reputation for emotional articulacy.Carner doesn’t so much spit verses as let them flow out of Read more ...
Sebastian Scotney
How do we want our fleeting, precious, close-up glimpses of the royals to be? Do we want the mystique, the aura, glamour and transcendence? Or would we rather be reassured that they are, in their way, just like us? No performer could have given more energy and dedication to a show than Bebel Gilberto did last night at Union Chapel; I was just wishing that she could have worked slightly harder at the former than the latter.Take the final section from her encore, surely her uncle Chico Buarque's tune "Samba e Amor". There she was, lying down on the stage as if she was on the gym mat at an Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
“I don’t know if I’m going to recognise any of it,” I say to my accomplice as we drain a couple of light ales amid the sea of grey beards in The Old Market’s bar. “I don’t think they’ll play the hits,” he replies, deadpan, “but don’t worry, there should be some onstage banter that’ll give you a couple of the titles.”“The hits” he refers to are composer Terry Riley’s seminal works, such as the totemic minimalist masterpiece In C and the 1969 electronica milestone A Rainbow in Curved Air. He’s right; they do not turn up. Alas, he’s not so right about the banter which is limited to a couple of Read more ...
Owen Richards
“Our attendees are a select group, but we have a connection,” remarked Damon Albarn at the end of The Good, the Bad & the Queen’s set. He’s not wrong – much of the band had outgrown Cardiff’s Great Hall 25 years ago, but it proved the perfect venue for this musical love-in.It was a show of two halves, quite literally. The first dedicated to the band’s recent album Merrie Land, and the second to their eponymous debut (which unbelievably is 12 years old). It’s clear why: both are concept albums with their own sound and themes. This time we’ve moved out to the seaside, emphasised by the Read more ...
Sebastian Scotney
There is increasing urgency, commitment and assuredness about the way Laura Mvula performs her music. The context for her performance here was Love Supreme's day at the Roundhouse. As the event's main headliner and the stand-out performer, she really delivered the goods on Saturday night.Mvula explained that she has not been gigging much since she stopped touring her second album The Dreaming Room a couple of years ago, but rather wanted to work on new material. However, the real interest in this performance stemmed from what has happened to her performing manner. If there was once a certain Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The sticker on the sleeve says “Marvin Gaye’s Lost Album.” A prime internet sales site states “You’re The Man was the album that was proposed to follow-up the monumental What’s Going On.” According to the marketing and promotional material, You’re The Man is “Marvin Gaye’s never-released 1972 Tamla/Motown album” and that it’s the “music legend’s shelved follow-up to What’s Going On.”Let’s be clear: the new double album You’re The Man is not an unreleased album.Instead, it marries the 1972 single “You’re the Man” with recordings taped the same year at separate sessions with various Read more ...